


Prelude of Blood and Glory

by HelenaKey



Series: Tempered Steel [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother Feels, Brotherly Bonding, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Injury Recovery, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Loki Whump, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2019-01-16 01:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12332529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenaKey/pseuds/HelenaKey
Summary: Loki must decide whether or not to stay. Choosing turns out to be way harder than he had first anticipated.





	Prelude of Blood and Glory

**Author's Note:**

> And, well, here's the second part. This one was not as easy to edit as the first one, if I'm honest, perhaps because I'm working with Loki's POV this time. The guy sure can be difficult to write sometimes. I tried to make things with the Speech Disorder as realistical as posible, having in count that by the end of the first part Loki could barely even say his own name. Don't forget that there's a significant amount of time between both stories. A year, maybe a little less. Loki's relationships with both Byleistr and Helblindi has changed, and even thought I tagged this as "injury recovery" I would say that he is already in the last stages. Not to say that he is fully recovered!
> 
> I know a lot of things are still a mystery. There are a lot of gaps and I'll probably be filling them in the next story. Also, the more I think about it the more I think that I need to writte something between this part and the first one, probably multi-chaptered. Gotta find the time to writte it, thought. As always. Hope you enjoy the reading, and if you do please leave feedback!

“When you honor your Gods properly…” Helblindi used to say. “…hunting gives you profits. When you do not, it gives you waste."

However, the principle could hardly be applied to his case, for despite his inclinations to honor ancient traditions, Helblindi was rarely lucky when he went out into the forest to hunt. Ever since the drought had begun, the Gods had become an unknown, distant entity for the people of Jotunheim, and he was no exception. So what did it matter if the offerings he gave to them were not the best of his repertory? He still presented them, by all means. Had he offered too small rabbits, or too thin bulls? Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that. His skills in hunting were poor, and there was little to nothing of value left to eat in the moorlands, let alone to bestow it upon the Gods. The few animals that inhabited the cold tundra of his Realm were not what one would call worthy of a feast. In fact, they were just good enough to fill a few empty stomachs.

The war that had been raging in the East ever since the incident with the Bifrost never came to the hills where he lived. As sons of the former king and the last survivors of the royal lineage, Helblindi and Byleistr had been exiled to the quietness of the field, cursed to remain hidden until the conflict was over. Perhaps, if it weren't for his conditiom, Loki would have been forced to join the ranks, as most youths were in times of war. Luckily, Helblindi thought, the circumstances were different. If he was honest, he had been anxious when he was first told that a Royal Steward would be coming over to take a look at the young man who was living in idleness with Jotuneheim’s princes. But as he had said, to both brothers’ relief,  _one look was more than enough._

This ought to make Helblindi happy, to know that he and the people he loved wouldn't be forced to face battle, but for some reason he found that it didn't. Maybe it was for the way his chest ached every night, when he failed to hunt something of substance to feed Loki and his brother. Maybe it was the whispered prayers that he gave daily to his Gods, and that always seemed to remain unheard. Maybe it was the shame that washed over his face whenever he thought of his brothers and sisters, dying in the battlefield at the hands of the Aesir, while he lied there in his hut, hiding like a coward. But a new, burning feeling was growing inside Helblidi; an unknown desire that at night gripped tightly at his chest, making him restless and bitter – the thirst for blood and glory humming quietly beneath layers of skin.

 

* * *

 

 

Loki felt the change instantly, even before Byleistr. In Helblindi’s common silence now laid something different; the quiet merriment of someone who possess a new treasure. Loki suddenly felt the change, as if the shame of possessing a lump of coal had transformed in the pride of owning a precious stone. Something was about to change. He didn’t say anything, nor did he conclude anything; he just knew.

He kept practicing with his daggers, just like before, trying to recover that rusted, old talent. Byleistr always said that, whatever one may think at first glance (whatever the Steward had thought) Bite Size had probably been a challenging warrior before his accident. If his talent with bladed weapons was not proof enough of that, then the dented armor he had been carrying when he was first brought to the house surely was. The first time he heard him voicing these thoughts Loki had almost been tempted to laugh, and although he did manage to hide it, he was certain that the quiet smirk crossing his face didn’t pass unnoticed.

The day that Helblindi came to the meadow in the south of the forest where he normally trained, Loki already knew what he was going to say. He tried not to let it show; refusing, at the beginning, to allow his practice to be interrupted. He took a few steps back and then turned, artfully, towards his targets – forming one being with his tightly held daggers. He hit all the marks, except one. He turned to look at Helblindi then, and realized that the Jotunn would have trouble telling him this.

While he was already pass the point of shouting down the words directed at him, make himself understood was still a difficult task for Loki. He was painfully aware of this. He stopped his training, and walked to the nearby edge of the forest, placing his daggers inside the sheaths hanging from his armor. He repeated in his head, meanwhile, what he was going to say. Helblindi followed him with slow steps. He was preparing himself too. Suddenly, Loki found the words.

“Something troubles you.” He said, looking up – wanting to elaborate but not knowing how. Helblindi waited, knowing that eventually he would find the words again. “You are leaving, are you not?” He asked slowly, been aware for the first time of the strong Asgardian accent that ran with his words. For a moment, he wondered if Helblindi and Byleistr had noticed.

“Yes, we are.” Helblindi was wondering, on his part, if Loki knew where they were heading. He knew _,_ but for the moment, he thought wiser to play the fool. “The current king, Utgard-Loki, sent a letter asking for our presence. He wants us to go home.” He said slowly, crunching his back a little to meet the eyes of the smaller Jotunn. He kicked a stone out of his way, then, and turned towards his home. It wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be.

“… When we first came here, we build a room; the one where you are staying now. We called it the baby’s room, you know why? … You know who the baby was?”

 _Yes, I know,_ Loki thought with an edge of bitterness. But he didn’t say anything.

“He was… our brother. By blood and not just by bond.” Helblindi’s nose wrinkled. “It seems funny know. The arrival of this baby was something that seemed so sure that we build the room when Mother was only a few weeks pregnant. When he was born, we…” Helblindi looked at his home, the added wing of the structure, and then the chain of rocks around the forest. “He was… a  _runt,_ like you are. King Laufey didn’t thought him worthy of living among us Jotnar… He sent him to the temple, as a gift to the Gods, and left him to die in the cold.” He concluded.

“Oh…” Was the only thing Loki said. He had learned that syllable from Byleistr. It was very useful, because it could be interpreted in many ways.

“And then one day, out of nowhere, you appeared.” Helblindi said suddenly, not looking down at him, but straight ahead; that made Loki frown. “In the middle of the forest, buried by the snow. Alone. Hurt… Dying.” The Jotunn turned to look at him straight in the eyes, and Loki felt himself shiver at the intensity of his gaze. “And I knew, from the first moment I saw you, that the Gods were testing me.” The Jotunn crunched, and his cold oversized hands came to rest over Loki’s thinner, smaller shoulders. He went completely still, suddenly feeling very aware of his deprecating size. “That they were giving me a chance to do things right… And I  _do_ want to make things right, Loki.”

The small Jotunn fought not to squirm. He couldn’t move. His mouth felt dry; in a matter of seconds he had managed to forget all the words and expressions that he had regained in the past few months. He wondered if this is what it felt like to have your tongue cut off.

“But I want you to know that I’m not forcing you to do anything.” At that last sentence, Loki tilted his head to the side; not understanding. Helblindi’s hands squeezed him, not unkindly. “This is your choice. Call me when you’ve made up your mind.” He smiled down at him and then, to Loki’s relief, he finally released him. He just nodded slightly, and after a few seconds of staring and a quick pat on the back, Helblindi turned around to leave.

 

* * *

 

Loki’s first conscious thought was:  _Well, this is over._

 _What is over?_ He asked himself.

He looked around.  _The quietness,_ he decided. Just then, he realized that Helblindi had left more than three hours ago, and that during all that time he had been practicing with his daggers, trying once again to hit all the targets. He felt as though that work had been done by someone else, while he, Loki, had been gone.

He absently took the grindstone and pressed one of the daggers against it. When he moved it slowly he could hear water boiling in a saucepan, and when he moved it faster, he could hear the sound of a tree been cut down. Where had he felt this strange pass of the time, as if life was moving around him without him realizing? Loki moved the dagger slowly. The dried meat, the soothing coldness, the sweet quietness. Two gifted daggers. A freezing hut. A sense of… He thought he knew the word, it was in the tip of his tongue, but suddenly it disappeared, as if it had never been there.

No, the destroyed time never existed in those memories. He moved the dagger faster. Screams of death in the lands of Svartalfheim. The heat of battle running through his veins. The snow falling. The cry of a night wolf. The birds flying to the south. Two cold hands lifting him. Blood. Everything at the same time. Not as parts of the same thing, but as solitary things. Lonely wounds.

That’s how time passed in those moments, without him realizing. Why was he remembering it now?

He looked around him, as Helblindi had. done it; looking at the house and its irregular outline, and the land, and the forest, and the water in the basin.  _When I am alone,_ he thought,  _that’s how time passes._ That’s how it’s passing now; that means that I am alone again. Then, he remembered Helblindi’s words, and he understood that he had always been alone. He and Byleistr had not been looking out for Loki; they had been looking out for the baby. The irony of it was not lost on him

Once, in the battlefield, in the dessert, in the agony, being tightly held by someone else’s arms, Loki had been a part of something. And if during those nine eight months he thought that he was part of something else, for nine months he had been wrong. He knew anger very well. At some point in his life, it was the only thing that he could feel. It fell over him then, as an ocean wave, and then it was gone, leaving him lost and weak. And the object of that anger was himself. How hadn’t he realized? He had always been  _alone,_ and he had always done everything _alone._ Why had he allowed himself to feel that things could be different?

He was not a Son of Ymir, and he was not an heir of Bor either. He was neither Aesir nor Jotunn. Neither a God nor a Giant. He was Loki, one and only - a slip of the Fates that was unlikely to be repeated. A person like him could not be bond to anything; all his bridges to the world had been burnt since the moment of his birth. That night, in the temple, the Gods themselves had refused to take him, and if that didn't speak of his dubiousness, the life he later led clearly did.

Loki turned the grindstone aside, and put his daggers inside the sheaths of his armor. He sat on the old, forgotten trunk that laid a few inches away, and remembered Helblindi’s silent question. He took a deep, measured breath, and waited.

 

* * *

 

When Loki woke up the next morning, he felt that there was something different about the world. As he came out of his room and walked through the hut, the feeling only grew, but still he couldn’t tell what it was. It was as if all the past months had been a long, restful season, and now everything was on march again. All the colors around him were immeasurably more gray; the smells of the barn, the smells of the forest, the smells of the smoke were too more strange and intense. He felt sad and he didn’t know why. Something was coming to an end.

He went outside. Byleistr’s old chariot was complaining and creaking at the foot of the hill. Loki started to walk towards the sound and realized that it was buried in the mud. He noticed that it was full of luggage. The right rear wheel had passed too close to a ditch and had fallen into it, so that the shaft was touching the ground and the wheel was turning about in the air. Byleistr was putting a series of stones under the wheel, trying to stabilize it. When he saw Loki, he set the rocks aside and walked towards him; the skin on his cheeks was slightly bluer. He looked tired.

“You need help.” Loki told him sternly. Byleistr frowned, turning to look at the chariot, and then at Loki.

“Yes, I suppose I do.” He said, looking unsure. The small Jotunn tried not to sneer at that; he was tired of how careful the brothers were with him when it came to physical labor. While he understood, in theory, why the matter of his size could make him seem somehow delicate in the eyes of normal Jotnar, just thinking about it made him want to cringe. He might have been little, but he was not a disable person.  _It’s going to end soon, anyway,_ an annoyingly bitter part of his brain told him.

Loki came forward, and quickly began to put the rocks aside. Byleistr mounted the horse and ordered him to move. Loki put his arm under the rear edge of the chariot and, while the horse advanced, he leaned forward. His body stretched all that his current position allowed him and even a little more. Then he bowed again. The chariot rattled and gave several hops before finding ground.

They came back to the hut and eate. From his seat Loki could see Helblindi’s room, and with a frown he noticed that the bear sheets were gone. The bed, so large that it was twice his size, seemed strangely abandoned. He felt a gape in his stomach, and had to wonder what was causing It. When he finished eating the brothers stayed in the table, looking at him with expectation; no one said anything for a while. Suddenly, Loki was aware that they were waiting for him to speak. He remembered that dreaded, never asked question, and felt bile rise up his throat.

He put his hands over the table, and took a measured breath. He hadn’t practiced what he was going to say (he should have) and soon he found out that he didn’t know what answer he was supposed to give. He looked at Helblindi for a moment, recalling the conversation they had the day before. Clearly, the man wanted him to come. He didn’t know what Byleistr thought about the matter.

“Well… did you pack your things?” Helblindi asked, unexpectedly.

“My… things?” Loki asked slowly, even thought it had been a while since he had trouble saying such simple things. He reminded himself that this was a mistake.

“Well, you are coming with us, aren’t you?” The Jotunn asked, and Loki had to close his eyes for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. He could feel the blankness lapping at the edges of his mind, threatening to overwhelm him. Suddenly, he remembered the loneliness; not as a consistent memory, but as a feeling, a part of a whole, a piece of a puzzle. He remembered lying in his cell, alone, unheard and forgotten, by everyone and everything that he had once known. He had promised himself then, that he would never ask anything else from life. He had decided that, no matter where he was, no matter what happened, he would never again belong to anything. To anyone. He reminded himself that it had been a mistake.

He knew that this (whatever it was) sooner or later would crumble apart in his hands; no matter how much he tried, no matter what he did, the outcome would always be the same. He knew that eventually, he would regret this. He also knew that this was a mistake that he needed to make.

His lips parted for a moment, and after a couple of weird, almost invisible facial twitches, he smiled; the most soft, sincere smile that he could manage, after everything. “Yes, of course.” He said simply, slowly, as he usually did when he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to finish a sentence without slipping. Byleistr just nodded; his face difficult to read, as always. Helblindi smiled widely, and stood up from his chair to trap the small Jotunn between his large, sturdy arms. As Loki felt the cold limbs surround his body, eagerly lifting him from the ground, he couldn't find in himself the strenght to push the man away. He could have spoken, then, demand to be released (even if it sounded strained, he was sure he could have make himself understood) but he didn't. 

A part of Loki didn't want him to let go.

 


End file.
